Super Simple Shape Sorting Activity

Working on shapes with your kids? Here’s a great shape sorting activity – you’ve got to try it!

I love teaching kids about shapes. There’s just something simple and fun about it, and it’s always been one of my favorites. This shape sorting activity has been a staple in my life for almost a decade now – because it’s that good.

What you need to know about teaching shapes.

The thing with teaching kids about shapes is that often we show kids a flat representation of the shape and work on them memorizing how it looks.

Once they can spout off the names of a few shapes, we think it’s done. They know their shapes!

But actually, that’s just the beginning.

There are TWO keys to teaching shapes.

Kids need to recognize shapes in their environment, to recognize that a clock is a circle or a table is made of rectangles. The more we can expose kids to identifying shapes in their environment, the more well-rounded their understanding of shapes becomes.

Attributes: memorizing how a shape looks is the base of learning shapes. The next level is attributes – being able to describe why something is a shape or the specific characteristics of a shape.

Understanding that a square has 4 sides, 4 points, and each side is the same is a BIG skill and one that we have to teach our children. They need to know why and what shapes are.